San Research Blog

Made it! Delivered the draft storyboard for the San e-tale app by deadline.

This involved a far-too brief recce around the subject of app design, so if anyone has suggestions about well-designed enhanced e-books for further study, please let me know. Right now my gold standard is an iPad app made by Touch Press, T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. Take a look. It’s ravishing. Max Whitby, Managing Director of Touchpress, gave me a rough cost indication for what he calls ‘a moderately sophisticated interactive book of the kind we publish’… The estimate was‘ £75k to £150k. ‘ Eeek!

Not having that kind of budget (nor any at all at this stage) I had to do what I could. Using App Scribbles and Publishing layout I tracker-padded a sketch of an eland and a group of San elders squatting around a fire.

As you can see from the above, no professional illustrators need fear for their jobs

Drawing a traditional San village (the portal page for the proposed app) defeated me. To my rescue came Jobe Gabotowe, currently in residence at a San cultural centre in South Africa where they have a replica village. Quick as a flash he snapped a shot and emailed it to me.

Jobe is one of a cohort of omnicompetent young San I had the good fortune to meet at a workshop in South Africa in August last year. A Khwe man from Botswana, Jobe is a qualified tour guide currently undertaking curatorship training at Iziko Museum in South Africa.

He is one of the Young San Writers fast developing a powerful voice. Read his account of his growing awareness of injustice suffered by the San, past and present, here:

I hope to be able to consult these tech-savvy future custodians of San culture, about my project. Perhaps we could convene for a reunion at !Khwa ttu?

In the meantime, let’s hope my storyboard does it for the fellas from the uni’s IT Futures team who are submitting costings for designing a prototype app based on this storyboard.

Replica traditional San village at cultural centre, !Khwa ttu. The tree stump seats are a concession to tourists.